Systems for managing conferences

ABSTRACT

Described is a conference management system for administering an online conference. The conference management system receives an electronic communication from a conference participant. A group is determined to be associated with the conference participant. An action is performed on the conference participant based on the group association.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to systems for managingconferences, and more specifically, to conference management systemsthat perform actions on conference participants according to groupmembership.

BACKGROUND

Conference management systems, also referred to as conference bridges,permit participants at different locations to communicate in real-timewith each other in a video, audio, and/or web conference. Typically,each participant connects to the bridge, either by a special phonenumber that connects the participant to the conference bridge, or by theconference bridge placing a call to each participant. Conferences ofteninclude a moderator, who manages various aspects of the conference, suchas adding and dropping participants, selecting participants to be seenor heard during the conference, and creating sub-conferences from theconference. Such actions are performed on a per-participant basis. Forexample, the moderator can select a speaker to “take the floor” withoutinterruption by other participants by muting the other participantsindividually.

BRIEF SUMMARY

An embodiment features a computer-implemented method of administering anonline conference. The conference management system receives anelectronic communication from a conference participant. A groupassociation is determined of the conference participant. It isdetermined whether an action is to be performed. The action is performedbased on the group association of the conference participant.

One embodiment features a conference management system. The conferencemanagement system comprises a participant interface in electroniccommunication with a plurality of conference participants. Theconference management system further comprises a group determiner thatdetermines a group associated with a conference participant of theplurality of conference participants. The conference management systemfurther comprises a conference controller that performs an action on theconference participant based on the association with the group.

Another embodiment features a computer-implemented method ofadministering an online conference. A conference management systemreceives an electronic communication from a first conference participantand a second conference participant. A first group is determined to beassociated with the first conference participant. A second group isdetermined to be associated with the second conference participant. Thefirst group has a higher priority status than the second group. An eventis detected that includes the first and second conference participants.An action is performed on the first conference participant based on anassociation with the first group having the higher priority status.

Another embodiment of the invention features a computer program productfor administering an online conference. A computer readable storagemedium having computer readable program code is embodied therewith.Computer readable program code is configured to receive a plurality ofconference participants. Computer readable program code is configured todetermine a group associated with a conference participant of theplurality of conference participants. Computer readable program code isconfigured to monitor the conference to determine whether an action isrequired on the conference participant. Computer readable program codeis configured to perform the action on the conference participant basedon the group association.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and further advantages of this invention may be betterunderstood by referring to the following description in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings, in which like numerals indicate likestructural elements and features in various figures. The drawings arenot necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed uponillustrating the principles of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a network diagram illustrating an environment in whichembodiments of the systems and methods can be applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a conference managementsystem.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of a method for administeringa multiparty conference.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of a multipartyconference configuration.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of a method of managing themultiparty conference shown in FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a user interface used by aconference moderator for performing an action against a group ofconference participants.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a user interface used by aconference moderator for performing an action against conferenceparticipants based on group participation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, specific details are set forth although itshould be appreciated by one of ordinary skill that the systems andmethods can be practiced without at least some of the details. In someinstances, known features or processes are not described in detail so asnot to obscure the present invention.

In brief overview, the conference management systems and methodsdescribed herein manage one or more conferences according to groupmembership of the participants. A conference administrator can createone or more participant groups in the conference management system. Eachgroup is populated with a list of conference participants, and withinformation pertaining to each participant, such as the participant'sname, job title, and contact information. A group can be populated withparticipant information by the conference administrator, or can be addedautomatically by the conference management system, for example, byquerying an external information source such as an information directoryserver or social network website. During a conference, actions can bedirected against conference participants according to their groupmembership. For example, a conference administrator can select a groupfor muting, whereby all participants in the group are muted.

The moderator can also create a conference profile that limits thenumber of groups associated with conference participants to only thosegroups of interest to the moderator, for example, only those groups towhich the moderator also belongs.

Conferences can also be managed either with moderator assistance or inan unattended mode, i.e., no moderator, in accordance with predefinedrules, guidelines, or policies, For example, conference speakers can beprioritized according to a corporate policy, whereby when a companyexecutive speaks during a company-wide conference call, all otherparticipants are muted. Thus, when a vice president of the company and anon-executive employee speak at the same time during a conference call,the employee is muted, permitting the vice president to speak withoutinterruption.

FIG. 1 is a network diagram 10 illustrating an environment in which thesystems and methods can be practiced.

Conference participants can access a conference management system 100 byemploying various client devices 20, such as a computer 22, telephone24, cell phone 26, and/or other mobile device 28, for example, apersonal digital assistant (PDA) or handheld computer. The conferenceparticipants are geographically separate from each other, and cancommunicate with the conference management system 100 via an interveningnetwork 12, for example, a public switched telephone network (PSTN),mobile communications network, data network, such as a local areanetwork (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), or a combination thereof, orother communication networks known to those of ordinary skill in theart. The conference management system 100 and client devices 20 cantransmit video, audio, data, or a combination thereof over the network12 to each other. The conference management system 100 can alsocommunicate with one or more information sources, such as a socialnetwork 34 or information directory 32 such as a Lightweight DirectoryAccess Protocol (LDAP) directory.

A conference administrator 11 can be connected to the conferencemanagement system 100 by a desktop computer, laptop computer, serversystem, handheld device such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), acellular phone, computer terminal, or other electronic device incommunication with the conference management system 100. The conferenceadministrator 11 can be connected to the conference management system100 via a connection 14 known to those of ordinary skill in the art, forexample, a standard telephone line, digital subscriber line, cable, LAN,WAN, broadband, or wireless connection. Alternatively, the conferenceadministrator 11 can communicate with the conference management system100 via the intervening network 12. The conference administrator 11 canbe a conference participant, a system administrator, or other user.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the conference managementsystem 100 of FIG. 1. The conference management system 100 can beconfigured for centralized conferencing, decentralized conferencing,full mesh conferencing, or multicast conferencing, or other conferencingconfigurations known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Theconference management system 100 can be configured for operator-attendedconferencing, where a conference administrator 11, also referred to as amoderator or operator, can create and/or schedule one or more concurrentconferences. The conference administrator 11 can also monitor aconference, performing functions known to those of ordinary skill in theart, such as muting participants, creating question and answer sessions,and responding to participant requests. Alternatively, the conferenceadministrator 11 can create unattended conferences, such as an ad hocconference, where no moderator is present during the conference.

The conference management system 100 generally includes a participantinterface 202, a group determiner 204, a conference controller 206, anda profile manager 208. The participant interface 202 establishes aconnection with each client device 20 so that the video, audio, and/ordata streams from one client device 20 can be mixed together inaccordance with well-known mixing techniques, and output to the otherclient devices 20. In this manner, each participant can hear, see,and/or exchange data with one or more other participants during aconference.

The participant interface 202 can include a network interface (notshown) that is connected to a network, for example, the interveningnetwork 12 shown in FIG. 1. The network interface 202 can communicatewith the network via any combination of hard-wired or wirelesscommunication links, for example, a standard telephone line, digitalsubscriber line, LAN, WAN, e.g., T1, T3, broadband, wireless, orcellular connection.

A conference participant can establish a communication path between theparticipant's client device 20 and the conference management system 100.This can be accomplished for example by dialing a phone numbercorresponding to the conference management system 100 or by entering aninternet uniform resource locator (URL) for accessing the conferencemanagement system 100. Alternatively, conference management system 100can initiate a connection with the participant, for example, by dialingthe participant's client device 20.

The group determiner 204 receives participant information and determineswhich, if any, group or groups are associated with the participants. Theconference administrator 11 can use the group determiner 204 to createone or more groups, and place each conference participant into one ormore of the groups when the participant joins the conference.Alternatively, the group determiner 204 can automatically addparticipants to a group as the participants join the conference.

The group determiner 204 can identify preexisting group associationswith conference participants by querying an external informationdirectory server 32, for example, a LDAP directory, or a Systems,Applications, and Products in Data Processing (SAP) directory, or humanresource system. The group determiner 204 can also query otherinformation sources such as a social network 34, for example, theFacebook® social network. If the query by the group determiner 204identifies a group to which a participant belongs, the group associationcan be presented to the conference administrator 11.

When a conference administrator 11 creates a group, the group determiner204 can validate a participant's association with the group by queryingan abovementioned information source 32, 34 and identifying groups, or asubset of a group, associated with the participant. Groups retrievedfrom the query can be compared to the group created or referenced by theconference administrator 11 to determine whether the participant isadded to the group. If so, the participant can be automatically added tothe group created by the conference administrator 11.

The profile generator 208 generates a conference profile that can beused by the conference administrator 11 to select one or more groups ofinterest among the groups received from external information sources.This feature is particularly beneficial where conference participantsare members of several groups, which may be unknown to the conferenceadministrator 11.

For example, if an LDAP query determines that a participant is a memberof a significant number of groups, the relationship data pertaining tothe participant and each group can be presented to the conferenceadministrator 11 The profile generator 208 can reduce the number ofgroups to only those groups which are of interest to the conferenceadministrator 11. In doing so, the conference administrator 11 cancreate a conference profile to filter groups based on keywords,reporting hierarchy, participant location, relationship to theconference administrator, or other manner that is beneficial to theconference administrator 11 with regard to effectively administering theconference.

A conference profile can be created to comply with corporate policies orguidelines regarding conferencing etiquette. For example, a profile canbe created that complies with a corporate policy establishing that whena vice president speaks during a conference call, the other participantsare to be muted. Conference profiles can be stored in a data repository212 for reuse by the conference administrator 11.

The profile generator 208 can create a conference profile for anunattended conference or ad hoc conference, which can establish apredetermined number of groups and default actions according to theprofile groups. For example, when a company employee joins a conferencewith his peers and his manager, and an LDAP query produces irrelevantgroup associations, such as the employee's membership to the companysoftball league, the irrelevant group associations can be discarded bythe conference profile, so that only relevant group associations, suchas the employee's immediate organization, are used in the conference.

The conference controller 206 executes actions directed to groups, orparticipants based on group membership. For example, the conferencecontroller 206 can mute all participants in a group in response to arequest made by the conference administrator 11, or in response to apredetermined policy, which can be enforced by creating a conferenceprofile.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of a method 300 foradministering a multiparty conference. The method 300 can beimplemented, for example, in the conference management system 100described above. Accordingly, in describing the method 300, reference isalso made to FIGS. 1 and 2.

The method 300 commences with the creation of a conference. A conferenceadministrator 11 can create the conference by configuring the conferencemanagement system 100 to receive one or more participants (step 310).The participants can be received by establishing an electroniccommunication with the conference, for example, placing a telephone callto the conference management system.

The participants can be received by joining the conference, for example,by dialing a conference number or entering an internet URL to access theconference management system 100, or by the conference management system100 initiating a connection with each participant, for example,automatically dialing the participant's client device 20.

A group can be determined (step 320) for each participant. Participantgroups can be determined by the conference administrator 11 before aconference starts or during a conference. The conference administrator11 can determine which groups to be included in a given conference byselecting predefined groups from a list, for example, provided in adrop-down menu.

The conference administrator 11 can create groups, and populate thegroups with conference participants as they join the conference. Thepredefined groups can be created according to a canonical format forcommunicating with an external information source, for example,information directory server 32 or social network 34, which may includeinformation related to the group, for example, information onparticipants who are members of the group. Thus, a conferenceparticipant's association with a predefined conference group can beverified by querying an information source. In other cases, noverification is required. If the query identifies a group in theinformation source that matches the conference group predefined by theconference administrator 11, the participant can be automatically addedto the conference group created by the conference administrator 11.

Instead of, or in addition to, predefined groups, other groups can beretrieved from an external information source, and presented to theconference administrator 11, either before a conference start, or duringa conference. For example, if a query determines that a participantbelongs to a school alumni group identified in the social network 34,then the school alumni group can be added to a current list of groups inthe conference management system 100. The group determiner 204 can alsodetermine whether other conference participants belong to the retrievedgroup, e.g., the school alumni group, and add these participants to theretrieved group.

As described above, the conference management system 100 can perform aquery of an external information source to determine one or more groupsto which a conference participant can be associated. These groups can bedetermined using the conference participant's identifier, e.g., phonenumber, email address, etc. The identifier can be provided when theparticipant joins the conference, for example, by providing a usernameand/or password, or other identifier such as an email address, phonenumber, identification number, etc.

For example, a participant's email address can be stored in an LDAPdirectory, as well as information related to the participant'sassociation with an employee group, for example, a group entitled “VicePresidents.” When the participant joins a conference, a query can bemade based on the participant's email address. If the participant'semail address is found in an LDAP directory along with a groupassociation entitled “Vice Presidents,” this information can beretrieved from the LDAP directory and presented to the conferenceadministrator 11. Other participants can be subsequently added to thegroup entitled “Vice Presidents” after verifying their association withthis group.

The conference administrator 11 can receive this informationdynamically. In the previous example, the conference management systemcan be configured so that the conference administrator 11 does notretrieve the LDAP search results until a vice president joins aconference; the vice president's entry to the conference can prompt thesearch query for groups associated with the vice president.

When a participant joins a conference, a determination can first be madeas to whether the participant should be added to any current list ofgroups in the conference management system 100. If there is noassociation between the current list of groups and the participant, aquery can then be made to determine whether the participant isassociated with a group not identified in the conference managementsystem 100.

Some participants may belong to several different groups, which can bedifficult for the conference administrator 11 to manage. For example,the automatic population of participants into groups by the conferencemanagement system 100 can result in a participant belonging to eachgroup in a given conference. In this example, when a moderator performsan action to mute one group of participants over another, thisparticipant would be muted regardless of which group the moderatorchooses to mute. In another example, a participant can belong to severaldifferent groups identified in an information source directory, and eachgroup can be retrieved from the directory and added to a list of groupsin the conference management system 100. However, the conferenceadministrator 11 may be unaware of or uninterested in many of thesegroups. The issues described in these examples can be overcome bycreating a conference profile that reduces the groups to only thosegroups of interest to the conference administrator 11.

As described above, a conference administrator can create a conferenceprofile to comply with established policies, for example, to mute allparticipants during a conference except for vice presidents. Aconference profile can also be created to eliminate chatter or conflictarising when two or more participants speak at the same time. In theprevious example, when a vice president and another participant speak atthe same time during the conference, the other participant can be muted,since the conference profile is configured to establish that the groupto which the vice president belongs has a higher priority to speak thanthe group to which the other participant belongs. In another example, aconference profile can be created to comply with a policy of preventingcertain groups of participants from joining a conference due to lack ofresources, for example, insufficient conference connections, whilereserving sufficient resources for preferred groups of participants.

A conference profile can be created for an unattended conference, whichincludes a set of default actions to be performed during the conferenceaccording to group membership. For example, a conference profile can becreated to permit a member of the group entitled “vice presidents” tospeak during a conference without interruption by instructing theconference management bridge 100 to automatically mute the otherparticipants when a vice president speaks. In another example, aconference profile can indicate that an audio tone is played when a vicepresident enters or leaves a conference, and that no audio tone isplayed when other participants, i.e., participants other than vicepresidents, enter or leave the conference.

A group may also be determined, and participants added to the group,only after a participant initiates an event, for example, only when theparticipant speaks during a conference. In this case, when theparticipant speaks, a query can be made to determine whether theparticipant belongs to an existing group, for example, a groupidentified by a moderator or a predefined group located in an externalinformation source. Once a group is identified, the participant isassigned to a group, and actions can be directed to the group to whichthe participant is assigned, or directed to the participant based on theparticipant's association with the group. In the previous example, ifthe speaking participant is determined to belong to a low prioritygroup, the speaking participant can be muted when another participantassociated with a high priority group speaks during the conference.

The conference (step 330) can be monitored to determine whether anaction is required on a conference participant or a group. Theconference administrator 11 can monitor the conference. Alternatively,the conference can be monitored automatically by the conferencemanagement system 100 without conference administrator intervention.

An action can be performed (step 340) either on the participant or thegroup to which the participant belongs based on group membership. Suchactions can be readily performed manually by the conferenceadministrator 11 or automatically by the conference management system10, and are well-known to known to those of ordinary skill in the art,such as muting participants, responding to participant requests,creating sub-conferences, dropping participants when resources are low,etc.

An example of conference administration will now be described withreference to FIGS. 4 and 5. As shown in FIG. 4, Participant 1 throughParticipant 4 can join a conference configured in a conferencemanagement system 400, referred to as a main conference. As Participant1 through Participant 4 are each added, a determination is made by aconference administrator 11 as to which of two groups, Direct Reportsand Remote Employees, each participant should be added. Groupinformation such as group names and participant information such asparticipant names can be displayed on the administrator's displaydevice, e.g., a computer terminal, so that a conference administrator 11can perform actions related to Participants 1 through 4 based on theirgroup associations.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method 500 of managing the main conferenceshown in FIG. 4.

Method 500 begins by Participants 1 and 3 joining the main conference(step 510), for example, by logging into the main conference, or by theconference management system 400 placing outbound calls to Participant 1and Participant 3. Participants 2 and 4 can also join the mainconference in the same manner as Participants 1 and 3.

Group associations with each participant are determined (step 520). Inparticular, Participants 1 and 2 are determined to belong to the DirectReports group and Participants 3 and 4 are determined to belong to theRemote Employees group according to group determination approachesdescribed herein.

An event is detected (step 530) that includes Participants 1 and 3. Forexample, Participants 1 and 3 speak at the same time during the mainconference.

A determination is made (step 540) as to whether the Direct Reportsgroup has a higher priority status that the Remote Employees group, forexample, by a conference profile that complies with a corporate policyestablishing that a corporate executive's direct reports receivepriority with regard to speaking during a conference call. For example,a conference profile can be created, which establishes that conferenceparticipants associated with the Direct Reports group have a higherpriority with regard to speaking than those conference participantsassociated with the Remote Employees group.

Accordingly, if the Direct Reports group has a higher priority statusthan the Remote Employees group (step 540), then Participant 1 isselected to speak (step 550) based on Participant's 1 association withthe Direct Reports group, and Participants 3 and 4 are muted whileParticipant 1 speaks. Otherwise, as shown in step 560, eitherParticipant 1 or Participant 3 can be selected to speak according toanother selection scheme, for example, using loudness as a determiningfactor in selecting the speaker.

FIG. 6 illustrates a user interface 600 used by a conference moderatorfor performing an action against a group. In the illustrated example, alist of groups, i.e., Direct Reports and Remote Employees, is displayedto the conference moderator, for example, on the moderator's computerscreen. Each group includes one or more conference participants. Theconference moderator can configure the user interface 600 to displayeach participant under a corresponding group. Alternatively, as shown inFIG. 6, the conference moderator can configure the user interface todisplay groups only, and perform actions on the displayed groups. Forexample, the conference moderator can execute a mute command to theRemote Employees group, whereby all conference participants in theRemote Employees group are muted.

FIG. 7 illustrates a user interface 700 used by a conferenceadministrator for performing an action against conference participantsbased on group participation. During a conference call, the conferenceadministrator can select Participant 1 to speak by executing an audioactivation command 704. In doing so, the conference administrator canalso execute a mute command 702 against the Remote Employees group,whereby each participant in the Remote Employees group, i.e.,Participants 3 and 4, are muted while Participant 1 speaks.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of acomputer program product embodied in one or more computer readablemedium(s) having computer readable program code embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical connectionhaving one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber,a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storagedevice, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storagemedium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a programfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signalwith computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, inbaseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated signal may takeany of a variety of forms, including, but not limited to,electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. Acomputer readable signal medium may be any computer readable medium thatis not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate,propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device. Program codeembodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using anyappropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline,optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of theforegoing.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of thepresent invention may be written in any combination of one or moreprogramming languages, including an object oriented programming languagesuch as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions whichimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, orother devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed onthe computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce acomputer implemented process such that the instructions which execute onthe computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

While the invention has been shown and described with reference tospecific embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in theart that various changes in form and detail may be made therein withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A conference management system, comprising: aparticipant interface including a network interface device in electroniccommunication with each of a plurality of conference participants; agroup determiner that provides a plurality of groups for the pluralityof conference participants of a conference and determines a first groupfrom the plurality of groups to be associated with a firstconference-participant of the plurality of conference participants, theplurality of groups including the first group and a second group for theconference, the plurality of conference participants including the firstconference participant and at least one other conference participantassociated with only the first group and a second conference participantassociated with only the second group; and a conference controllerapparatus that performs an action on the first conference participantbased on either the first conference participant's association with thefirst group or based on the group, the action including distinguishingthe first group associated with the first conference participant fromthe second group to second conference participant is associated by theconference controller selecting the first group to which the action isto be applied from the plurality of groups, the conference controllerreceiving a signal from a conference administrator to select only thefirst conference participant of the first group and not the at least oneother conference participant of the first group to perform the actionover the second conference participant based on the first conferenceparticipant's association with the first group as distinguished from thesecond group to which the second participant is associated.
 2. Theconference management system of claim 1, wherein the conferencecontroller is in electronic communication with the conferenceadministrator.
 3. The conference management system of claim 2, whereinthe conference administrator monitors the conference and instructs theconference controller to perform the action on the first conferenceparticipant.
 4. The conference management system of claim 1, wherein theconference controller monitors the conference when the conference isconfigured as an unattended conference.
 5. The conference managementsystem of claim 1, wherein the group determiner is in communication withan external information source, and determines the first groupassociated with the first conference participant from the externalinformation source.
 6. The conference management system of claim 5,wherein the external information source is an information directory. 7.The conference management system of claim 5, wherein the externalinformation source is a social network.
 8. The conference managementsystem of claim 1, wherein the conference controller performs the actionon all conference participants in the first group.
 9. The conferencemanagement system of claim 8, wherein the conference controller mutesall participants in the first group.
 10. The conference managementsystem of claim 1, wherein the first group has a higher priority statusthan the second group, wherein the conference controller detects anevent that includes the first and second conference participants, andperforms an action on the first conference participant based on anassociation with the first group having the higher priority status. 11.A computer program product for administering an online conference, thecomputer program product comprising: a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith,the computer readable program code comprising; computer readable programcode configured to receive an electronic communication from each of aplurality of conference participants of a conference; computer readableprogram code configured to determine a first group from a plurality ofgroups to be associated with a first conference participant of theplurality of conference participants, the plurality of groups includingthe first group and a second group for the conference, the first grouphaving at least one conference participant who is different than that ofthe second group, the plurality of conference participants including thefirst conference participant and at least one other conferenceparticipant associated with only the first group and a second conferenceparticipant associated with only the second group; computer readableprogram code configured to monitor the conference to determine whetheran action is required on the first conference participant; and computerreadable program code configured to perform the action on the firstconference participant based on either the first conferenceparticipant's association with the first group or based on the group,the action including distinguishing the first group associated with thefirst conference participant from the second conference participant ofthe second group to which the second conference participant isassociated by the conference controller selecting the first group towhich the action is to be applied from the plurality of groups, theconference controller receiving a signal from a conference administratorto select only the first conference participant of the first group andnot the at least one other conference participant of the first group toperform the action over the second conference participant based on thefirst conference participant's association with the first group asdistinguished from the second group to which the second participant isassociated.